The Kibbutz Atop the Mountain

By Lauren Mescon on March 15, 2011

The burn is on both sides
of us as we drive through the forest on the paved roads. A beautiful makeshift memorial to those that
lost their lives is on the curve where the bus was caught by the fires, where
they crossed the road on foot trying to escape the fires. The path the fire chose leaves green forest
and trees in a puzzle pattern among the destruction and there is a stark beauty
in the anemones as they bloom out of the ash.

Kibbutz Beit Oren began in 1935.
As the only kibbutz in the area, the kibbutz suffered from terrorism
often. They tried to evacuate the
settlement early, but the chief of the Hagganah at the time insisted they stay
and said, "we will not run away." This is a
community in the oasis of this amazingly vast and beautiful forest. Tamar from Kibbutz Bet Oren spoke to us. They were the first
kibbutz to privatize. 350 people including the children live here.

We saw the 10 houses that were destroyed, saw the ones that
will require removal, very careful removal so as not to damage the forest
further. There are families and young
adults, finished with their army service, who are in small quarters, waiting
for new housing.

Tamar explained that it was impossible to stand
where we were standing in December. The fire began at 11:30 am and by 4:30 pm
all the houses that we saw were burned. They heard on the news that Beit Oren
was completely burned. She commented that the drama of the news was too
much. 12 people remained in Bet Oren
using buckets and anything else they could find to put water on the houses.
Without them, the whole kibbutz would have been lost. "Everything has changed
here," she says, "but we are trying to get back to life. We love the forest and
will go on living here," she tells us, as we hear the children in the background,
playing and laughing in the schoolyard.

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